Agent Technology

Where is the Complexity?

Even in a medium-sized airport, there will be congestion at certain times of the day, with more aircraft arriving than can be accommodated by the runway(s). Resolving this competition for the runway resource requires that the flow manager take many factors into account, and can lead to overload:

Too many unexpected dynamic changes in the situation

sudden change in wind

aircraft diverging from expected behaviour

one of the runways unavailable due to weather

Too many aircraft in a given time frame

too many ETAs (Estimated Time of Arrival) and pilot instructions to calculate/issue

Optimisation factors

potential for simultaneous landing on crossing runways

heavy aircraft can land close behind light aircraft (but not vice versa)